JOE AMATOWAS BORN IN SYRACUSE, NY, in 1955, and raised in the metro area. He completed his undergraduate degrees in mathematics and mechanical engineering at Syracuse University, and his Master of Arts and doctoral degrees in English at University at Albany. A licensed professional engineer in New York State, he spent seven years in industry working in various project engineering capacities. Amato is the author of ten books: Sipping Coffee @ Carmela’s (poetry, Lit Fest Press, forthcoming 2016); Samuel Taylor’s Last Night (novel, Dalkey Archive, 2014); Big Man with a Shovel (novel, Steerage, 2011); Once an Engineer: A Song of the Salt City (memoir, Excelsior Editions, 2009); Pain Plus Thyme (poetry, Factory School, 2008); Industrial Poetics: Demo Tracks for a Mobile Culture (criticism, University of Iowa, 2006); Under Virga (poetry, Chax, 2006); Finger Exorcised (poetry, BlazeVOX, 2006); Bookend: Anatomies of a Virtual Self (criticism, SUNY, 1997); and Symptoms of a Finer Age (poetry, Viet Nam Generation, 1994). His prose, poetry and digital art have been published in Antennae, 88, Chain, Crayon, Jacket, Bombay Gin, Denver Quarterly, Los Angeles Review of Books, Mad Hatters’ Review, Mandorla, New American Writing, Postmodern Culture, MiPOesias, Notre Dame Review, Nineteenth Century Studies, Ragazine, Something on Paper, The Iowa Review, The Iowa Review Web, The Spoon River Poetry Review, Voices in Italian Americana and electronic book review. Amato’s screenplays, coauthored with Kass Fleisher, have reached the semifinal rounds of the Nicholl Fellowship and Chesterfield competitions, and on three occasions, have placed in the Second Round of the Austin Film Festival Screenplay Competition. Amato currently teaches creative writing and literature with the Department of English at Illinois State University, and you can find him at ISU, on Facebook, on LinkedIn, on Twitter, on Google+, at Wikipedia, and at Amazon. He’s the production manager at Steerage Press.